Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia - Hardcover

Shermer, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1627798579 ISBN 13: 9781627798570

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2018

Synopsis

A scientific exploration into humanity’s obsession with the afterlife and quest for immortality from the bestselling author and skeptic Michael Shermer

In his most ambitious work yet, Shermer sets out to discover what drives humans’ belief in life after death, focusing on recent scientific attempts to achieve immortality by radical life extentionists, extropians, transhumanists, cryonicists, and mind-uploaders, along with utopians who have attempted to create heaven on earth. For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, the place where souls go after the death of the physical body. Religious leaders have toiled to make sense of this place that a surprising 74% of Americans believe exists, but from which no one has ever returned to report what it is really like.

Heavens on Earth concludes with an uplifting paean to purpose and progress and what we can do in the here-and-now, whether or not there is a hereafter.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael Shermer is the publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for Scientific American, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. He is the author of The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, and many other bestselling titles.

Review:

“This book’s theme is the one of greatest practical importance to all of us: does some heaven or afterlife await us after we die? Most Americans, and even many atheists, believe that the answer is ‘yes.’ If there is no heaven, how can we find purpose in life? Michael Shermer explores these big questions with the delightful, powerful style that made his previous books so successful—but this is his best book.” —JARED DIAMOND, professor of geography at UCLA and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and other books

“Thank goodness for Michael Shermer’s sound and inspired mindfulness and for this importantly useful volume. Truly a delicious read. Ten Goldblums out of a possible ten Goldblums!” —JEFF GOLDBLUM, actor

“Heavens on Earth is absolutely brilliant, filled with profundity, startling facts, and mind-expanding ideas. Michael Shermer somehow manages to be entertaining and scientifically erudite at the same time. He also brings some of history’s greatest thinkers to life and makes their ideas accessible. This is one of the most fascinating books I’ve read in a long time.” —AMY CHUA, Yale Law professor and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother and coauthor of The Triple Package

“I appreciate every evolutionary step skepticism takes toward openness. Heavens on Earth is an affirmation that other worldviews deserve respect and understanding. In this book science may actually be catching up with the world’s wisdom traditions.” —DEEPAK CHOPRA, M.D., coauthor of War of the Worldviews and You Are the Universe

“Michael Shermer is a beacon of reason in an ocean of irrationality.” —NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, director of the Hayden Planetarium, host of Cosmos and StarTalk, and author of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

About this edition

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1627798579
• ISBN 13: 9781627798570
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320